Saving Seafood

ALASKA: After “nerve racking” slow start, Bristol Bay catch numbers rebound with 2 million plus catch days

July 13, 2020 — The Fourth of July is typically the high point in the salmon season for Bristol Bay’s commercial fishing fleet, but in a year where COVID-induced uncertainty dominated the preseason, low harvest added to anxiety in the first weeks of the season.

“It was a very, very slow start. I think the slowest in my experience every fishing. It was definitely nerve-racking,” Katherine Carscallen, a drift gillnet fishermen in the Nushagak District said. “The Fourth of July is our typical peak, and that was where I looked at my log book where I keep track of how much we’ve caught and definitely started asking myself like, ‘how is this possible.'”

Through July 4, the cumulative bay wide harvest was just over 6 million fish – 49% below the average since 2012. Then the evening of Independence day the fish arrived in massive numbers.

“By the fifth of July it was just hard hitting for the fifth, sixth and seventh,” Carscallen said. “We definitely increased out poundage by a whole lot in just three days, and since then it’s just kinda been going steady.”

Read the full story at KTUU

ALASKA: Pebble signs deal with Bristol Bay village corporations for transportation, support services for multi-billion-dollar mine project

July 7, 2020 — Developers of the Pebble project near Lake Iliamna announced an agreement July 6 with Alaska Peninsula Corp. for transportation services related to development or operations of the mine planned by Pebble Ltd. Partnership.

APC is an Alaska Native village corporation formed by the merger of five small Bristol Bay village corporations, in Port Heiden, South Naknek, Ugashik, Kokhanok and Newhalen.

A Memorandum of Understanding signed with Pebble Partnership would have APC form a consortium of village corporations to operate all transportation services for the mine, Pebble Partnership said in a press release.

A contract would include managing operations at a planned Cook Inlet ore terminal, maintaining an access road from the port to the mine site north of Lake Iliamna and providing trucking services between the port and road.

Pebble is a large undeveloped copper, gold and molybdenum deposit 18 miles north of the community of Iliamna. The developer, Pebble Ltd. Partnership, is a subsidiary of Northern Dynasty Minerals, which owns the prospect.

Read the full story at The Frontiersman

Salmon fishing in Alaska off to a slow start statewide

July 6, 2020 — Salmon harvests across Alaska are slow so far as the fisheries head toward their usual high points in July.

So far, fishermen have landed about 5.8 million salmon. That’s less than half of the 2018 numbers by the same date, when 14 million had been landed. Much of that is due to poor sockeye returns, particularly in the Copper River area, though everywhere is slower than previous years, including Bristol Bay.

The Copper River and Bering River districts continue their shutdown this week due to unexpectedly low sockeye returns. The return to the Copper River is not living up to the preseason forecast, with only 378,058 sockeye through the Miles Lake weir as of June 29, compared to more than 696,828 by the same date last year. The forecast called for 1.5 million sockeye to return to the Copper River this year.

In an emergency order issued June 27, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game noted that the escapement through June 25 is about 85,000 fish behind projections, and the surveys of the Copper River Delta are significantly behind estimated ranges.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

TYSON FICK: Alaska’s fishing boats are weathering an unprecedented storm

July 6, 2020 — No one reading this needs to be reminded that we are in uncharted waters as thousands of Alaska fishermen set out to sea for the salmon season. As a fisherman with two young boys, I felt a deep sense of both privilege and responsibility as I set my nets in the glacier-fed waters of Taku Inlet in late June.

Most fishing seasons the biggest questions are: Will the salmon come early or late? Will they be swimming deep or along the shoreline? This summer the questions are: Will Alaska’s independent fishermen financially survive the coronavirus? Will there be buyers willing to pay a decent price for their catch? Will fishermen get access to the personal protective equipment and testing that they need to avoid the spread of coronavirus? Will the long-fought Pebble mine be permitted while Bristol Bay’s fishing fleet is out risking their lives?

Realizing that spring in 2020 was like no other, here at SalmonState we felt it was important to reach out while hunkering down. We did that via SalmonState’s Spring Fishermen Survey. What we heard from the nearly 800 commercial fishermen who responded is while there are new concerns when it comes to their fishing operations, there are a couple of bedrock issues that continue to be priorities for those who make their living from the ocean.

Read the full opinion piece at the Anchorage Daily News

Alaska salmon: Bristol Bay opens with Pebble Mine decision pending

June 30, 2020 — The biggest red salmon run in the world is building at Bristol Bay.

Up to 50 million fish could surge into its eight river systems in coming weeks, on par with past seasons. When it’s all done, the fishery will provide nearly half the global supply of wild sockeye salmon.

But this summer is different.

Beyond the restrictions and fears and economic chaos caused by covid-19, fishermen are waiting to learn if the development of a massive gold and copper mine that’s been hanging over their heads for two decades will get a greenlight from the federal government. The news is expected to come at the height of the summer season.

In mid-July, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to unveil its federal record of decision on the permit application by Northern Dynasty of Vancouver, Canada, to build the Pebble Mine at the sprawling mosaic of headwaters that provide the spawning and rearing grounds for the region’s salmon.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Project to study pandemic impacts on Alaskan salmon season

June 29, 2020 — The following was released by Penn State:

Bristol Bay, Alaska is home to the world’s largest commercial sockeye salmon fishery, attracting thousands of fishermen, crews, and seasonal workers and tripling the region’s population. Running from early June to late July, the short salmon season is facing a new challenge this year, the coronavirus pandemic.

Penn State is part of a research team conducting surveys with fishery participants and residents to better understand the costs and benefits of varied mitigation policies and is developing pandemic preparedness scenarios. This collaborative project is being funded by a $200,000 National Science Foundation RAPID Response grant.

The concern for this year’s fishing season stems from the 13,000 commercial fishers, crew, and fish processor workers who are descending upon the Bristol Bay region. The largest hospital in the region only has 16 beds and two ventilators and, as of May 2020, was not prepared for an outbreak of coronavirus.

Because the overall economic value of the fishing season is estimated to be around $1.5 billion dollars and the region is dependent on the fishing industry, canceling the season is not economically feasible.

Read the full release here

Fear and fishing: Tiny Alaskan village tries to manage influx of commercial fishermen amid COVID-19

June 24, 2020 — “It’s just how the earth is supposed to be,” says third-generation commercial fishing boat captain Katherine Carscallen. She’s talking about her homeland, Bristol Bay, Alaska. Every June and July, more than half of the world’s supply of sockeye salmon are pulled from these waters.

It sounds excessive, but it’s not; in a highly regulated practice, thousands of fish are left to return home and spawn, allowing the industry to support the region for generations.

The yearly salmon fishery brings in an estimated $200 million in direct revenue to the community of Bristol Bay, says Norm Van Vactor, president and CEO of Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation.

“Overall, it’s a multi-billion dollar fishery,” he says of the thousands of fisherman who come from all over the world to fish for salmon. On average, 10,000 fishermen come each year — but oftentimes that number is upwards of 15,000. In addition, 6,000 fish processing workers also descend on the tiny community.

Read the full story at ABC News

How Covid-19 Is Threatening Alaska’s Wild Salmon Fishing Season

June 23, 2020 — For Christopher Nicolson, each June brings happy anticipation of his family’s trip to the tiny Alaska fishing town of Naknek, 3,700 miles from his home in East Flatbush, Brooklyn.

Naknek, set into the grassy bluffs above Bristol Bay, is as bygone as New York City is modern. Cellphones barely work. Bears bang around in the trash at night. You can go from your fishing boat to your truck to the store and back again without missing a word of news on the single AM station.

Mr. Nicolson, 45, spends much of the year working at Red Hook Winery in Brooklyn, where he is the managing winemaker, but his main income is drawn from Iliamna Fish Company. The business, which he and two cousins own, sells Alaska red salmon directly to thousands of shareholders, most of them in New York and Portland, Ore., as well as to a few high-end restaurants and stores, including the Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn.

Read the full story at the New York Times

Pebble offers to pay annual dividend to residents of Bristol Bay, hotbed of opposition to Pebble’s mine

June 19, 2020 — The proposed Pebble Mine has always faced fierce opposition in Bristol Bay. Now, Pebble is offering to pay every adult resident of the area an annual dividend.

Pebble Chief Executive Tom Collier says he wants to share the benefits of the mine with the region, even before the mine delivers its first load of ore. Pebble says it will pay at least $3 million a year in dividends, divided among those who register to receive it.

“(If) 3,000 sign up, it’ll be $1,000 a year,” Collier said. “And as the project becomes profitable, it will be much more than that.”

Collier says he’s making good on a commitment he made to the region.

Read the full story at KTOO

ALASKA: Bristol Bay Native Corporation not impressed with Pebble’s latest offer

June 18, 2020 — On Tuesday, Pebble Limited Partnership introduced the Pebble Performance Dividend. The plan would distribute 3% of the net profits from the proposed Pebble Mine to registered Bristol Bay residents.

But the idea was quickly rejected by the Bristol Bay Native Corporation.

In a statement BBNC President and CEO Jason Metrokin called it “the latest attempt by PLP to try to win support from the people of Bristol Bay for the proposed Pebble mine.”

Pebble Mine said the project would take a few years to be profitable, so it would distribute a miniumum of $3 million a year or about $1,000 if there are 3,000 “registered participants.”

Read the full story at KTVA